Sport in Wales plays a prominent role in Welsh culture. Like the other countries of the United Kingdom, Wales enjoys independent representation in major world sporting events such as the FIFA World Cup and in the Rugby World Cup, but competes as part of Great Britain in some other competitions, including the Olympics.
Guernsey participates in its own right in the Commonwealth Games.
Great Britain competed at the 2008 Summer Paralympics in Beijing, People's Republic of China. Great Britain sent a delegation of around 400, of which 212 were athletes, to compete in eighteen sports at the Games. The team was made up of athletes from the whole United Kingdom; athletes from Northern Ireland, who may elect to hold Irish citizenship under the pre-1999 article 2 of the Irish constitution, are able to be selected to represent either Great Britain or Ireland at the Paralympics. Additionally some British overseas territories compete separately from Britain in Paralympic competition.
Peter Robert Norfolk OBE is a British wheelchair tennis player. Following a motorbike accident which left him paraplegic, he uses a wheelchair. He took up tennis and following a further spinal complication in 2000, he began competing in the quad division. He is nicknamed The Quadfather.
Sir Philip Lee Craven is an English sports administrator, former Paralympic wheelchair basketball player, swimmer and track and field athlete. Between 2001 and 2017 he was the second president of the International Paralympic Committee (IPC).
Great Britain was one of twenty-eight nations to send athletes to the 1968 Summer Paralympics in Tel Aviv, Israel from November 4 to 13, 1968. The team finished second in the medal table and won sixty-nine medals: twenty-nine gold, twenty silver and twenty bronze. Athletes from the whole United Kingdom, including Northern Ireland, were able to compete for the team. Seventy-five British athletes took part in the Games; fifty-one men and twenty-four women.
Great Britain sent a delegation to compete at the 1972 Summer Paralympics in Heidelberg, West Germany. Teams from the nation are referred to by International Paralympic Committee (IPC) as Great Britain despite athletes from the whole of the United Kingdom, including those from Northern Ireland, being eligible. They sent seventy two competitors, forty seven male and twenty five female. The team won fifty-two medals—sixteen gold, fifteen silver and twenty-one bronze—to finish third in the medal table behind West Germany and the United States. Philip Craven, the former President of the IPC, competed in athletics, swimming and wheelchair basketball for Great Britain at these Games.
Great Britain competed at the 2012 Summer Paralympics in London, United Kingdom, from 29 August to 9 September 2012 as the host nation. A total of 288 athletes were selected to compete along with 13 other team members such as sighted guides. The country finished third in the medals table, behind China and Russia, winning 120 medals in total; 34 gold, 43 silver and 43 bronze. Multiple medallists included cyclist Sarah Storey and wheelchair athlete David Weir, who won four gold medals each, and swimmer Stephanie Millward who won a total of five medals. Storey also became the British athlete with the most overall medals, 22, and equal-most gold medals, 11, in Paralympic Games history.
Aled Siôn Davies is a Welsh Paralympian athlete competing mainly in category F42 throwing events. In 2012 he became the world record holder of the F42 shot put and in the 2012 Summer Paralympics he took the bronze medal in shot put and gold in the discus. In 2013 Davies took the World Championship gold in both the shot put and discus in Lyon. He won double gold in his home country at the 2014 IPC Athletics European Championships in the shot put and discus. This followed his silver medal in the F42-44 discus from the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow where he represented Wales. Davies also took part in the Channel 4 TV series Celebrity SAS: Who dares wins
William John Bayley is a British professional Paralympic table tennis player, ranked world number 1. He is the 2016 Summer Paralympics Games gold medallist and the 2014 World Champion.
Paul Davies is a Welsh Paralympic table tennis player. Davies, who has played table tennis competitively since 1991, was selected for the 2012 Paralympic Games, and took the bronze medal in the men's individual class 1 event.
Josef Isaac Craig, MBE is a retired British Paralympic swimmer. Craig competed in S8 events and qualified for the 2012 Summer Paralympics, winning gold in a world record time in the men's 400 m freestyle event.
Gordon "Gio" Reid is a British professional wheelchair tennis player. He is ranked world No. 4 in singles and world No. 1 in doubles. He is a Paralympic gold, silver, and bronze medalist, two-time Grand Slam singles champion, and twenty-time Grand Slam doubles champion.
This article is about the particular significance of the year 2013 to Wales and its people.
Great Britain and Northern Ireland competed, under the name Great Britain, at the 2016 Summer Paralympics in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, from 7 September to 18 September 2016. The first places for which the team qualified were for six athletes in sailing events.
Jonathan Broom-Edwards is a British para-sport athlete who competes mainly in category T44 high jump events. In 2013 he won his first major international medal with a silver medal at the IPC Athletic World Championship in the high jump.
Aaron McKibbin is an English Paralympic table tennis player. McKibben represented Great Britain at the 2012 Summer Paralympics and won a bronze medal in the Men's team – Class 6–8.
Neil Robinson is a retired para table tennis player from the United Kingdom. He participated in seven consecutive Paralympic Games and won team titles with Scott Robertson and James Rawson in both world and European championships.
Great Britain competed in the 2020 Summer Paralympics in Tokyo, Japan. Originally scheduled to take place between 21 August and 6 September 2020, the Games were postponed to 24 August to 5 September 2021 as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. British athletes have competed at sixteen consecutive Summer Paralympics since 1960.
Jonathan Coggan is a British paralympic wheelchair rugby player. He won a gold medal for the Great Britain national wheelchair rugby team at the 2020 Summer Paralympics in the mixed event. Coggan was appointed Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) in the 2022 New Year Honours for services to wheelchair rugby.
